As I left my consulting room, I was forced to reflect on how fortunate I am to be healthy and what a tragedy it is to be sick. Tragically so, when one is sick but cannot afford their treatment. And the biggest of both tragedies is when that sickness involves a life and death situation. You however see many of such when you are a doctor here, most especially in our public hospitals. People who will turn their backs on you with the certainty that they will die because they cannot afford a twenty thousand Naira; sometimes even much less. Nothing exposes one to the realities of poverty in Nigeria like a career in medicine. The poor perpetually cry and die in this country. But the irony is that the rich too may soon join!
The coronavirus is hitting hard on humanity. It is a mark of its self confidence that it decided to first take on us from our strongest positions. The world’s strongest economies, health systems, institutions and healthiest populations are humbled and a few even overwhelmed. COVID-19 is no respecter of wealth, ideology or race!
Nothing drives this truth home than the on going corona virus pandemic. In its severest forms, COVID-19 chokes and drowns its victim as a result of extensive damage and fibrosis in the lungs. Under such extreme circumstances, almost all patients will require some oxygen and not a few will have their life depend on a respirator (ventilator).
A ventilator is a medical appliance for artificial respiration that in most instances requires specialised doctors (Anaesthetists) to operate and monitor patients. Italy is today short of both, though it is among the top ten countries with the most advanced healthcare resources in the world. In northern Italy few and worn out doctors decide on who lives and who dies as they assign even fewer ventilators to their critically ill patients
There are important lessons here that Nigerians and our various governments should learn. First, we must intensify and deepen existing preventive and containment measures. Those who return home from overseas pleasantly comment that we are already doing well at the entry points. That is very commendable. But we can and must do more.
Because there are probably not more than two hundred ventilators in Nigeria that are unevenly spread across the country. Then add that to the existing deficit of personnel, regular everyday equipment/consumables and even bed spaces. Therefore, in the event of a full blown COVID-19 outbreak (God forbid), Nigeria has neither the capacity nor the resources or infrastructure to respond. It will be an apocalypse. The only twist this time around is that we shall all eat from the same pot. Those who can run and had habitually run to procure health abroad would have nowhere to run to. The world may be a global village, but rich or poor, home is home and is eventually where we all belong. With coronavirus, we all die here, both literally and figuratively.
There will be enduring and bitter lessons when this is finally over. This home called Nigeria must reinvent itself and reconfigure its priorities. With COVID-19, health has once more reaffirmed its primacy in the affairs of men. Health is clearly the most priceless of all wealth and viruses perhaps the future weapons of mass destruction.
I am accordingly of the informed opinion that the post corona world will in all probability respond in kind. It will amass deterrence – just as it did with the nuclear threat – but this time around in the form of more refined knowledge, information and breathtaking scientific innovations through investment in both health infrastructures and resources.
Nigeria must quit shooting blank. A new health system must emerge from the rubbles of coronavirus. In matters involving life and death, none of us, rich or poor should cry.
Dr Nuruddeen Muhammad is a former Nigerian Minister for Foreign affairs
